Latest / Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh / Transforming Pain to Purpose Part 2

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Transforming Pain to Purpose Part 2 · Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh

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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Chatting with the Experts
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TV show hosted by me, Paula Okonneh.
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Every week I bring to you an incredible woman.
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A woman that fascinates me, and I know you, with her story, but even more so,
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she fascinates you by what she brings to the table.
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The mission of this show is to inspire, is to empower, and is to
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educate each one of you that tune in or listen because I do have a podcast.
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And today is no exception.
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I have an incredible guest and I'll tell you a bit about her.
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Her name is Dr.
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Irene Olumese, and she's an author and inspirational speaker.
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She's a Bible study teacher and a certified faith informed professional
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transformational trauma coach.
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She is the founder and executive director of the Feet to Grace Foundation.
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As the founder and executive director of the Feet To Grace Foundation,
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which is a charity organization that provides prosthetic rehabilitation
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services for amputees in Nigeria.
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Irene facilitates amputees emotional well being and empowerment, driven
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by a desire to help people live victorious lives, irrespective of
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the storms they face, and to make their pain count as gain for others.
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Our topic is going to be Transforming Pain to Purpose, Power, and Profit.
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And with that, I welcome my guest, Dr.
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Irene Olumese.
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Thank you very much, Paula.
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Thank you.
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It's a pleasure and an honor to be with you this evening.
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Thank you.
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I am honored that you are my guest, because you inspire me, and that's
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one of the reasons I wanted to have you on, because if you inspire
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me, I know you can inspire others.
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So as you, my listeners and viewers, the topic is on Transforming
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Pain to Purpose, Power and Pain.
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There's a reason that we have that as the topic.
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So I'm going to ask Irene if she's willing to share her story with us.
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Okay.
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Yes, of course.
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And thank you once again Paula.
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I will try to do a mother of all summary of my story.
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As soon as I got on the waiting list, we just called up a few friends and
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told them, this is what we are facing.
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And we needed them to pray along with us.
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And all we were asking them to pray is for God to keep me alive until a
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suitable candidate is found for me.
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Because I simply could not pray that somebody should die.
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And while I was struggling with that, God led me to Isaiah 43 and it was
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like, because you're precious to me.
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And I love you.
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I give Egypt for your handsome and silver for your sake, and I give
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men in exchange for your life.
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When I read that, I mean, it floored me.
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This is how precious I am to God that He's willing to give a life for me.
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And so my only prayer throughout that period was that the person who
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is going to be the candidate, That's going to provide me with the lungs
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that will keep me alive will also be a candidate for heaven period of waiting.
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So January I got called back to the hospital.
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I had the same doctor who had initially said no, and he
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wanted to review my case again.
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And we thought that I had moved quite up on the waiting
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list, you know, at that point.
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And he asked me to give him the permission to take me off the waiting
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list that he's still not convinced that I could be a suitable candidate.
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And he was a very senior professor.
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He asked you for permission.
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Yes.
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They felt that the lungs would be, that it will do better for
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somebody else,
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somebody else younger than I was and all of that.
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I looked at him in the face and I said to him, what are my options?
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I don't take this, I die.
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I take this, I die.
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I rather fight, die fighting.
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Yes.
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I love that.
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That was great.
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I wasn't going to give him that permission to take me off the list.
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So I refused and four months later, Saturday, April 13th
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at 4:30, I got the phone call.
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I was actually in the midst of preparing for a woman conference.
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I had been in my church and arranged for a friend of mine, a minister, a
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woman minister from Nigeria to come and minister at this conference.
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So I was in the midst of the operation.
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Bear in mind, I was still wearing an oxygen canister.
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I had to have oxygen with me everywhere I was going.
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And since 2010, I was also on non-invasive ventilation.
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My doctors were afraid that my lungs would stop breathing while I'm sleeping.
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So I dared not go to sleep without a mask fastened to my face.
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Wow.
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And from using just one reservoir of oxygen in 2000, you know, per
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week in 2008, I was now using three reservoirs of oxygen per week,
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per day,
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per week,
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per week,
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week reservoir.
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So from one per week to three per week.
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So the situation was progressively going downward, was worsening.
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And really as far as my husband was concerned at that time, I was
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just literally on life support and
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walking,
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just waiting and waiting, but I couldn't wait idle and I
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got myself what I could do.
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I did.
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And that was what I was organizing this women conference.
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And I remember that morning I had a very strong urge to make a list of
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everything that needed to be done.
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So as soon as my husband left for, you know, I spent the whole day writing
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all the things that needed to be done, what is still pending, because it
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was now two weeks to this conference.
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I wrote down, To the last detail, snacks, decoration, just edits and
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had it all listed out where this is going, where that is going,
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when you finish this, you do that.
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And I had barely finished making this list, when the phone call came.
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Talk about divine timing.
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Divine timing.
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And I was at home with my second son.
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My first son was already in the university in the United States.
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My husband on Saturday afternoon, you can find him at home is at the
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choir in church and the phone rang, I picked it up and I was from the
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hospital and they told me that they had found a suitable donor for me.
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And was I ready?
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I mean, immediately I'm sure.
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Coming.
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My heart melted like wax within me.
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The vision I saw in that moment was somebody on the bed and a family weeping.
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I heard about that person and that broke my heart.
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I actually dropped on my chair and I could have, of course, when I'm in that state,
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my heart rate increased and then did that more oxygen that started hyperventilating.
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So I had to call my husband, my son down to bring the ventilator
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because I couldn't breathe well.
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And the doctor was saying, are you okay?
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Is everything still as the last checkup and say, yes we're sending an ambulance
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from your right to, for you right away.
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I said, no, I'm going to call my husband.
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My husband will bring me to the hospital.
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So as it gets your dad.
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And my husband's usual practice, he would have turned off his phone.
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And so we had, he literally had to call every member of the choir
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to see who has the phone on.
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Oh my God.
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So that they could get my husband.
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And as soon as he got him said they have called, he knew what exactly
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that meant and he started coming and while I dropped the phone from there.
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They called me from the ambulance services and said they're on my, on their way.
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Anyway.
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They were on their way with coming for me.
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Now because of the system in this country, the hospital that is the
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center for lungs, that's about 60 kilometers from where I live.
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So I really wanted my husband to be home before they took me.
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And they just both arrived at the door at the same time and
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we're left for the hospital.
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I couldn't even begin to process what was going on in my mind
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as we were during that drive.
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We got to the hospital, they prepared me, but I remembered something significant
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happened just as they were preparing me.
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They had given me the theater gown to wear.
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And I got out of bed.
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And asked my husband to help me to change.
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And I remembered vividly that, I mean, I was wearing pants and top and he
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helped me, you know, he had to go on his knee to help me remove the pants.
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And I had my hand on his shoulder.
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And that image stayed in the recess of my heart until a few months later.
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It was apparently the last time I stood on my two legs.
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After I go back in bed.
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Did you collapse then?
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I mean, while he was helping?
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No, I didn't collapse.
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I go back in bed.
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Mm-Hmm.
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And I was wheeled to the theater and I said to my husband, two
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things, I will see you again.
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One, two, under no circumstances must you cancel that conference.
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Whatever happens, go on.
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All the information I and
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with that they wheeled me in.
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Well, I did see him again, but not until about six weeks later.
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Wow.
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So this part of the story was told to me that they.
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The surgery itself went very well.
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Everything, all the constellation of risks that the doctors had talked
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about that could happen during the surgery itself did not take place.
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Not one, but barely 10 hours after the surgery.
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Hell broke loose.
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I mean, my husband had literally just left the hospital and right
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back at when they called him back, my system started shutting down.
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I was rejecting.
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I mean, one by one, all my systems were shutting down.
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I said, he got back and he saw me.
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I couldn't believe the sight that you saw.
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That's why I need to take a picture.
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That was the last thing on his mind.
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Apparently what happened was that because of my previous
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medical history and I am AS.
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I must have sickled and quite significantly.
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So I had to be placed on a heart lung machine during the surgery.
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So the situation was so bad that they had to medically induce coma.
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So I was on a heart lung machine for six weeks and I went into renal failure.
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I had to be on dialysis as well.
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And so it was like the blood was coming in from one machine, going
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through my body, goes out through one of the machine, you know, it was.
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It's that I had tubes in every office.
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It was just a maze of tubes just to keep me alive.
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And while all of that was going on, I think two, three weeks into the coma.
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They called my husband to say that something is really going wrong.
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It looks as if the blood circulation is not so efficient.
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And so I was not getting blood adequate supply to both my
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extremities, my legs and my hands.
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And at that point, they said to him that it looked like they would have
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to amputate both legs of both ends.
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My husband said, he came home and he said, nah, I mean, I have my peeve.
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I'm a shoe collector.
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I love my shoes.
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And he went into my shoe shelf and he put everything out into
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the middle of the bedroom.
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God, who is going to wear this?
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What's going to happen to this?
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And he came back to the hospital and told them that no, he was not going
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to give permission I have petition to be done at that point, that if I come
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back, we make that decision together.
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If I don't, that's it.
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So, but while I was in coma, it was not peaceful rest for me, it was warfare.
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It was, It was the fiercest battle I've ever fought in my life.
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I saw things that I still cannot believe.
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I still can't describe adequately.
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I tried as best as to do that in my book.
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It was very scary thing that I saw.
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But the interesting thing was that at the end of it, I come back into light.
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It was like a tug of war.
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I was like open to opposing powers pulling, at me.
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And, needless to say that by the time I came out of coma, I was mentally,
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physically, spiritually exhausted.
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I had no clue where I was in the world.
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I was so confused that, because while I was in coma, I thought
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I was, I found myself in winter.
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And I was hearing Christmas songs, snows and carousels singing and all of that.
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But this was April.
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So how long was I away?
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Where was I?
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I was really confused.
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And of course, I came out of coma and then they broke the news to me
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that I had, I got very strong lungs.
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But there was a lot of complications.
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And because of that, both my lines, both my hands and my legs will need
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to be amputated to keep me alive.
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Oh my word.
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I think this is a story, well, looking at you, first of all, this is a miracle.
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And now, okay, we are at this stage now, you say both your hands and your legs
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would need to be amputated after going through six weeks, as you said, a coma,
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20 years of coughing nonstop.
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Yes.
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Seven years on oxygen, three years on ventilation, six weeks in coma,
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oh my.
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And everything was coming to strong lungs, no legs, no arms.
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And I said, no, I'm not doing this.
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I'm done.
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I'm done fighting.
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I'm not doing this.
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Yes.
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All I could think is that what, at 47, I'm going to be
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quadruple amputee.
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Yes.
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Dependent on my family, my young sons.
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No, I'm not doing this.
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I wasn't ready to do this.
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And I was pained in the innermost core of my being.
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It's been, it had been a long road.
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It's been a long road.
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And I sat there and thought, I see you.
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And I wondered, God, what's all this?
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What's this about?
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And I don't want to hear how comfort you and all your afflictions,
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I've done this for 20 years.
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I've been using every comfort.
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Why this?
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So my husband asked to give us a week to come to terms with this,
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to help me come to terms with this.
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And for us to be able to make a decision.
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And he had to go on a duty travel to Somalia because all this was great.
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Nobody in his office knew what was happening.
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He couldn't take time off.
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He had a very toxic work environment.
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And so he was managing all of this with his full workload.
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So he went on a walk to UT, to Somalia.
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And while he was there, there's another, one of our friends who was part of
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those who had been playing along with us also attending that meeting.
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And at the end of the one week, he was getting ready to come back.
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And they had a conversation, of course, about what was going on and what he
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had to come into when he gets back.
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And this man said to my husband, God says he would give Irene the feet of
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grace that would take her to places that natural feet cannot take her.
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And my husband said, as soon as he heard that, he had peace and that people will
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see Irene and say that is grace in motion.
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So he texted it to me.
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Of course, I couldn't do anything.
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I couldn't even talk.
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So my son read it to me that God said he's going to give me a feet of grace.
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I said, I don't want feet of grace.
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I want my legs.
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So I came back and we chatted with the children about it.
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And I said to the doctors, if I have to do this, I'm going to, I
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want two things before I, I agree.
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One I want to stand for the last time on my two legs.
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And I said, it's absolutely impossible that both legs are dead.
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That picture of the last time came back last time when I stood on the
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legs, that picture scene, my husband, kneeling before me just came back.
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So I could have a reference point to the last time.
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When I stood on my own natural legs.
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And I asked for the second thing that I want to be taken
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out of the ICU into the garden.
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And I want to feel the sun on my face.
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I know that God is still alive.
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I feel the breeze.
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I know that he cares for me.
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I see you on all this stuff.
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Yes.
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Of course they refused to go until, but my doctor went and had a chat and
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said, look, let's give her something.
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Let's see how we can make one thing happen.
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She didn't bargain for this.
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And they've done the audits.
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There's no medical error.
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It was just, something went wrong somewhere.
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It was not a human error.
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So, they came back and said, if any nurse is willing, we will hold, you
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know, completely no responsibility.
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Then they can take me.
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So one of the nurses volunteered so that they disconnected me from the
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machine and put me on the mobile, packed me up, wrapped up with everything and
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for a 10 minutes trip to the garden.
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And I felt the sun on my face and the breeze on my skin and I knew that God is
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still alive out there and he loves me.
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Amen.
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And we came back.
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And the following day, I was back in the theater and both legs
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were amputated below the knees.
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And that was on the 31st of May.
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And I asked my husband, what?
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They took my legs.
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What next?
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Miraculously, my hands began to recover with signs of life.
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We spent three months taking excavating dead tissues from
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my hands and lost all my nails.
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All the 10 of them and this grew back and I had to go through a lot of therapy
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to learn how to write again and regain full functionality of my hands and by the
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grace of God, I have full functionality of both hands and I have made beads.
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Now I do jewelry with the same hands that would have been amputated.
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I've written two books.
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I'm on my third book now and what else to the glory of God.
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So with both legs gone and all of this going on, I asked God, what next?
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And he said to me, two assignments, inspire hope, share your story everywhere.
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I will open the door for you to inspire hope for others.
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Enrich lives.
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It's where I hope I understood because that's what I had been doing.
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Enrich lives didn't become clear until when I started learning how to walk again.
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And we, knowing what it took for me to learn how to walk again with
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my artificial legs, how much it costs and all that went into that.
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It was in that process of learning how to walk again that this
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thought dropped in my heart.
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How are amputees in poor communities coping?
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I mean, I knew what went into me learning how to walk again.
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And at that point we knew what exactly we're going to do.
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Was going to find out what was happening to amputees in Nigeria.
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And by the time I came out of the hospital, after 119 days, I had already
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my bidding sets ordered, and I had done the background check to find out.
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Who is supporting amputees in Nigeria, and we decided that we're going to
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set up a foundation that will provide prosthetic limbs for amputees in Nigeria.
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That's how we now have Feet of Grace Foundation that
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supports amputees in Nigeria.
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We have Hands of Grace, which is my business, and we have Grace
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in the Stomps, which is the book, Beyond the Pain, which is the book.
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Ministry of transformational coaching, where I help people to transform their
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pain to purpose, power and progress.
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Wow.
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It's not just a story.
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This is a story of purpose.
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This is a story of hope.
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This is a story of inspiration.
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This is a story of life, just looking at you, hearing you
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relay the story on the journey.
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It's been an arduous journey, but out of it has come life.
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And why I say life?
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Because just you look, I mean, seeing you alive, seeing you well, seeing the
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hands that they said they wanted to amputate, you're able to move them, you
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do jewelry, that takes some dexterity.
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I can't even pronounce it.
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The word.
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Dexterity.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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That's the miracle.
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Yeah.
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That's a miracle.
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You are a living miracle.
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I'm a living proof of God's grace that sustains his children for the storms that
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had to be part of the title of my book.
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So it's Grace In The Storms, A Living Proof of Grace.
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Yes.
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And that's what you are living proof of good.
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For our listeners before we even came on, we talked about how going
24:22
through difficult times in life.
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Sometimes it's not really our story.
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It's God's story so that we can use that as living human beings to inspire others
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to know that God is alive and that there's hope because many times there's so many
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of us who are living or so many people.
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Some of us have been down that road where it seems the
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situation has seemed hopeless.
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When we trust in God and he brings us through it.
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Someone hearing that story knows that they too can go through that storm.
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There is a plan.
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You didn't go through that storm alone and that's obviously.
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A case with you, Irene.
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Yeah.
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I mean, I had a question to offer.
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How has your pain brought purpose and strength?
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I think you've answered it.
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Well, I've always believed that our pain would be in vain if it does
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not serve us a gain for others.
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Yes.
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And I also know that God never wastes our pain.
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No, he doesn't.
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We can transform our pain to something that is meaningful and significant
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that can make a difference, not just for ourselves, but for others.
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It's always about others.
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So, I mean, the first thing was for me to, you know, work
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on setting up the foundation.
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Yes.
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But of course, by the time I started sharing my story, you know, everywhere
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to inspire hope, I began to attract people who were going through
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issues and needed to be supported.
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And I realized that I could talk to them from experience, but I wanted to
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be able to do it as a professional.
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So I did.
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I started taking courses.
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I did the the trauma informed special care.
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I did therapeutic marriage counselling.
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I did...
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it still wasn't enough for me.
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So I went and did a professional coaching course which lasted for
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about three years so that I could become a certified professional.
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So on the one hand, we're giving legs.
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On the other hand, I'm teaching people how to go beyond the
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pain and find purpose in it.
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And I have to take a look at what happened to you and know that there
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is something in what happened to you.
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We do not deny the pain, but pain has so much power inherent in it.
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And it has the power to dictate how you behave now.
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And direct how you transact in the future.
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And that is so much power to give one thing, something that happened to you.
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Why don't we harness the power in the pain and transform it to something
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that is meaningful and significant.
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And so for me, that has become my mission to help people
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harness the power in that pain.
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I mean, we know how we harness the power in the wind, how we harness the
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power of water to produce electricity.
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We can do the same with pain.
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Harness that power and transform it.
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Pain, painful experiences, traumatic experiences as a raw material.
27:40
You may not have a choice on what happened to you, but you do have a choice of
27:45
what you do with what happened to you.
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And that for me is the power that we can gain back from pain to dictate how we
27:59
deal with that situation and transform the rawness of pain, the brokenness that comes
28:06
with it, and into something that benefit others, something that is purposeful and
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the finest qualities of our characters are revealed in the crucible of afflictions.
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The first thing is you'll get to know yourself, who you are,
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what stuff you're made of, and that in itself is so empowering.
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What did not kill you, what you survived, must not bury you.
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Yes, and make you stronger.
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That is the shift that I want people to be able to have in their
28:48
mindset, in their perspective.
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That's what I do with my story, to help people to shift.
28:56
Make that shift.
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It happened.
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Yes.
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What next?
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What next?
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What are you going to do with it?
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What can you transform it into?
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And so that's where we got purpose.
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Something purposeful can come out of it.
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Power being empowered yourself and harnessing the power and transforming
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that power to a positive one that can ignite something more significant.
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The profit, everybody benefits.
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I don't know how many people are profiting from what I would say.
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They profit because it brings them hope.
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It helps them to have a new perspective to what they have been through.
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Even if it's one person, it would have been well worth the journey.
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Absolutely.
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But today, the foundation has provided limbs to over 120 amputees
30:00
and other services and so forth.
30:02
I mean, at least over 200 amputees have benefited from what happened to me.
30:09
What a
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story and what a true story and what a story of hope.
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I can't stop looking at you in amazement, but even more importantly,
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thanking God for how he has used you to be an instrument of hope.
30:29
So before we go.
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I do want to ask you if you can share with people, well, before we even get
30:36
to that, I would love you to talk a little bit on what it means to be a
30:40
certified faith informed professional transformational trauma coach.
30:45
I know we talked about the purpose in pain and there's hope and how you can
30:50
use that to help others and that's the profit, but the faith informed part is
30:58
something I'd like you to have a little bit in it because I'm a Christian, and
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you're a Christian too, and faith means a lot to me as I know it does to you.
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You know, I had to put that in because it's a niche that I wanted to create
31:15
for myself where we bring faith in.
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I don't know how we can achieve transformational change and
31:24
a sustainable one without anchoring it on the word of God.
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Amen.
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How do we really heal without the sealing, the healing power that comes from God?
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So I bring faith into my work with the permission of my clients.
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And the good thing is that majority of my clients are people of faith
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and that's what they're seeking.
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I've had clients who come to me that look, I've been to 101 therapists
31:56
and they are not hearing me because I want something I can anchor hope on.
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And so for me, it becomes an opportunity to be able to
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bring the truth of God's word.
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How do you even begin to process your pain?
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If you don't have a correct understanding of your identity.
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And who are you, if you're not defined by the one who created you.
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And if you can have a correct understanding of your identity as defined
32:28
by your creator, it is a starting point.
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Your pain does not define you, your traumatic experience does not define you.
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It's a part of your story.
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It's a chapter in your story, and you can write a new chapter with that story
32:43
where you have an understanding of who you are, who God called you to be.
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And how do we restore to wholesomeness if we don't anchor
32:52
on the truth of the Word of God?
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The Bible says that I wish that you are well and you are in good
32:58
health, even as your soul prospers.
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And so that means if your soul is not prospering, it affects the entirety
33:06
of your being and how does your soul prospers if it doesn't have the oxygen.
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That is the word of God.
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So that is the faith component.
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And I knew I was running.
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I was running as in line, especially in professional coaching when you
33:23
bring faith in, but I also have to be responsive to my client.
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Yes.
33:28
My client wants to anchor the process of God's word.
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And I know that makes a difference.
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That's what I bring along with my journey with the permission of my client.
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If you want to bring faith in, I'm ready to bring faith in.
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And I have seen phenomenal transformation come in when we anchor
33:52
it on the truth of God's word for us.
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Which I see
33:57
I...
33:57
person like I do.
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I won't ask you to join my faith.
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No, but I've just delivered to you what the word says and
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then you make the best of it.
34:06
Amen.
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So that's the faith informed part of being.
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So I trained to be a trauma care specialist.
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I trained to be a transformational coach.
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So I brought to together trauma and transformational
34:18
coaching and accurate on faith.
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That's what it is about.
34:23
Thank you for explaining that because, you know, as I mentioned to our
34:29
viewers, both Irene and I are Christians and we believe in a God who has a
34:35
plan and a purpose for our lives.
34:37
No matter what happens, there is a purpose.
34:40
And if that purpose, you said something earlier, Irene, if it's just one person.
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That you're able to help that may be the one person that God
34:49
wanted you to help at that time.
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We don't know what their own life is going to look like.
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They may take that and help millions of them and you did what you had to do.
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In heaven now, we will get to, when we get to heaven, we will understand it better.
35:06
We will have a full picture.
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For now, I want my pain to serve as something of eternal significance.
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Amen.
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And I think that.
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It's a double tragedy for us to go through something painful and waste it.
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And waste it.
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Not mine it for everything it's been delivered to us.
35:28
Yes.
35:29
So with this, I want you to tell my viewers and listeners, where can they
35:36
find you on if they're looking for someone like you were looking like someone who
35:42
can help them or help their loved ones.
35:45
Yeah, I'm Fitstam on social media.
35:48
Beyond the Pain is on Purpose Beyond the Pain is on Instagram and I have
35:53
that on Instagram and also on Facebook.
35:56
Irene T.
35:57
Olumese's page is on Facebook as well.
36:00
I'm also on YouTube Irene T.
36:03
Olumese's YouTube channel, where I share all that I do.
36:08
I have my website irenetolumese.
36:12
com.
36:13
So, you can find me on social media.
36:16
You can find me on YouTube and website.
36:20
And you can reach out to me at greatirene.graceinthestump@gmail.
36:26
com.
36:27
irene.graceinthestumpos@gmail.com.
36:31
Thank you so much.
36:35
And to you, my listeners and viewers, I want to thank you
36:39
for tuning in to this episode.
36:42
I have always said that our mission is that you leave inspired,
36:47
filled with hope or educated.
36:50
I know today was no different.
36:52
You definitely have been filled with hope.
36:57
And if you'd like to be a guest on this show, I ask that you reach
37:00
out to me on either my website, which is chattingwiththeexperts.
37:05
com or you can find me on LinkedIn.
37:09
Just search for Paula Okonneh there.
37:12
I'm also on Instagram.
37:14
And my handle there is at chat_experts_podcast.
37:22
And these days, I'm venturing out more onto Facebook.
37:26
Just look at all of them, and you'll find me.
37:29
Irene, thank you for your inspirational story today.
37:33
Just looking at you, you are a walking miracle of God.
37:40
And your life is a blessing to me.
37:42
I give God praise.
37:44
Amen.
37:45
Thank you.